The newly installed Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, Ruth Padel, is
under pressure to resign after she alerted the media to sexual harassment
allegations against Derek Walcott, her rival for the coveted role.

Ruth Padel is under pressure to resign her Oxford post over emails about rival poet Derek Walcott

By Urmee Khan and Richard Eden

4:15PM BST 24 May 2009

Padel had initially distanced herself from the smear campaign that had been run against Derek Walcott, a Nobel laureate.

However, as disclosed by The Sunday Telegraph, she had in fact contacted journalists to point out his supposed shortcomings and provide details of sexual harassment claims against him.

Last night AC Grayling, the philosopher who had backed Padel for the £6,901-a-year post, said he would make a formal complaint about her behaviour.

"The professorship is a very serious thing," he said at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival. "This is dirty tricks and character assassination.

"I didn't think Ruth would win against Walcott. When he withdrew, I thought it was absolutely wrong and there was no way that the Oxford professorship should be run on this business of sexual harassment; it should be run on the merits of the poetry."

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Emails seen by this newspaper show that Padel, who is 63, had mentioned to reporters Walcott's advanced age, 79, claimed that he had suffered poor health and pointed out that he lived in the Caribbean. She then went on to allege that what he "actually" did for students could be found in six pages in a book called The Lecherous Professor.

The 1990 study of priapic academics details the sexual harassment claim made by a student at Harvard University against Walcott. It also includes an allegation made by Nicole Niemi, a Boston University student and member of his creative writing class who sued him for alleged sexual harassment and "offensive sexual physical contact", demanding $500,000. The case was reportedly settled out of court.

Padel then went on to inform journalists that the claims could be found on the internet and were widely known in America.

Her emails were sent a few days before John Walsh, a journalist who is one of her close friends, highlighted the allegations in a newspaper. This was the first time that they had been published since Walcott became a candidate.

Soon after, around 100 Oxford academics, mostly women, were sent a dossier detailing the claims. The identity of the dossier's senders remains a mystery. Padel has insisted that she and her supporters had nothing to do with it.

Walcott withdrew from the contest, saying he did not want to be the target of a "low attempt at character assassination".

Two other former supporters of Padel, Lord Bragg, the broadcaster, and Sir Jeremy Isaacs, the former chief executive of Channel 4, are also now calling on her to step down.

Padel was unrepentant yesterday, however. "I passed on, in good faith, the concerns of a student who believed a professor's relations with women students were relevant to her university's appointment of a professor," she said. "Far from wishing anonymity, she wanted her concerns to be heard. The details were in the public domain and were a source of genuine unease to her.

"I would not have mentioned her concerns if I had known of the anonymous mailing. Nothing I have done caused Derek Walcott to pull out of the election and I wish he had not."